Muhamamdullah Khalili QasmiThe leading Islamic seminary of India, Darul Uloom Deoband convened an All India General Meeting of Rabta Madaris Islamia Arabia (Board of Islamic madrasas) in Deoband on 13, 14 May 2007 Sunday and Monday, in a bid to build a consensus on the Ministry of HRD’s ‘Central Madrasa Board’ proposal. The General Meeting was attended by more than 3500 delegates of 3000 Islamic madrasas from all over the country and unanimously passed the resolution that the proposed Madrasa Board is against the spirit of Islamic madrasas, therefore it is unacceptable. The huge response that this meeting received belied the government’s claim that it enjoyed the support of majority of the madrasas in forming the Board. The General Meeting will be remembered for years as it yielded presence of so many great scholars from all across the country even those who have some ideological differences among them. Darul Uloom Deoband tried to gather all of them on one platform to create consensus over the proposed Central Madrasa Board programme. The other biggest madrasas like Darul Uloom Waqf Deoband, Nadwatul Ulama Lucknow, Mazahir Uloom Saharanpur, Jamia Darus Salam Omarabad etc extended full support while Muslim socio-political organizations like Jamiat Ulama Hind, Muslim Personal Law Board, Milli Council, Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat, Tanzim Abna-e-Qadeem etc came forward to back the initiative with full vigour and strength. Interestingly the General Meeting enjoyed representation from major madrasas of all states of the country. The delegates were from Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Bihar, Bengal, Assam, Manipur, Tripura, Orissa, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujrat, Cchattisgadh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. The meeting was held in three sessions in the grand marbled Rashid Mosque. The first session, on 13 May from 8 am to 12 pm, was presided over by Maulana Marghoobur Rahman, Mohtamim (Vice Chancellor) of Darul Uloom Deoband. The prominent participants who addressed the gathering were Maulana Muhammad Rabe Hasani (Nadwatul Ulama Lucknow), , Maulana Muhammad Salim Qasmi (Darul Uloom Waqf Deoband), Maulana Ghulam Rashool Khamosh (Gujrat), Maulana Nizamuddin General Secretary Muslim Personal Law Board, Maulana Mahmood Madani (General Secretary Jamiat Ulama Hind), Maulana Khalilur Rahman Sajjad Nomani (Lucknow), Maulana Ameeduz Zaman (Tanzeem Abna-e-Qadeem, Dlehi), Maulana Abdullah Mughisi (Meerut), Maulana Ghulam Muhammad Wustanwi (Maharashtra), Maulana Ashhad Rashidi (Madrasa Shahi Moradabad), Maulana Abul Aleem Farooqui (Lucknow), Maulana Burhanuddin Sambhali, Maulana Abul Qasim Nomani (Varansi), Maulana Rahmatullah (Jammu & Kashmir) etc. Maulana Shaukat Ali Bastawi, the General Secretary of the Rabta, in his report, described the background of the meeting. After 9/11 attacks, the attention of media was drawn to Taliban regime in Afghanistan who were supposed to be trained in Deobandi madrasas of Pakistan. The then central government on India set up a Ministerial Group to monitor the madrasa activities in the country. The group expressed its concern over growing of madrasas especially at border areas and regarded them as dens of terrorism and fundamentalism. But, the fact was disgorged by Home Minister L K Advani when he faced a question in Parliament about the so-called criminal data of the madrasas. He confessed that the government has no record of any madrasa involved in terrorism. The NDA government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee expressed its determination to set up a madrasa board and modernize the madrasa system. But for unknown reasons, it retreated and there was no further initiative taken in this regard. But, after transfer of power in 2004 when the reign of UPA came in Congress’s hand, the Ministry of Human Resources Development was entrusted to Mr Arjun Singh. According to its undeclared tradition, the Congress tried to fulfill the unfinished task of its predecessor. On 3 December 2006, the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutes convened a meeting under the supervision of HRD ministry and announced its plan of establishing central madrasa board. In response, the Executive Committee of Rabta Madaris held its meeting in Deoband and it expressed grave concerns over the proposal and warned the madrasas to shun supporting the board plan. In his presidential address Maulana Marghoobur Rahman (VC of Darul Uloom Deoband and President of Rabta Madaris Islamia) said that the Central Madrasa Board proposal is a dangerous poison that aims at killing madrasas. If we will not be able to comprehend the gravity of the matter and reach a timely decision the coming time shall never forgive us. He added that these madrasas were founded to impart the education of Quran, Hadith and other Islamic Sciences, to preserve the Islam legacy and culture, to spread the Islamic values and ethics and defend the religion against all misunderstandings and misconceptions, and to produce sincere and dedicated servants of Islam who can preach the message of Islam to common masses. He counted several stalwarts and outstanding personalities that Darul Uloom Deoband produced in the past 150 years. According to him, the global powers are afraid of madrasas’ historic role; therefore they are conspiring to divert them from their right track. He concluded that Madrasa Board is a part of this international plot. The Acting Mohtamim of Darul Uloom Deoband Maulana Ghulam Rasool Khamosh stated that we should deeply examine ourselves and assess our shortcomings. He said that mostly such circumstances come to remind us of our faults and give us a time to reform. Maulana Muhammad Salim Qasmi (Darul Uloom Waqf Deoband) said that under the disguise of modernization and reformation the proposal wants to kill the spirit the madrasas. Maulana Muhammad Rabe Hasani (Nadwatul Ulama Lucknow) in his message said that madrasas are facing dangers and joint action is necessary, while Maulana Nizamuddin, Patna said that the anti-Islamic powers consider the madrasas a threat. But, the fact is that madrasas are preserving the Islamic identity and promoting national integrity and unity.Maulana Abul Qasim Nomani (Varansi), said: The proposed Madrasa Board is an illusion and the promises made thereof are baseless. We should reject every offer and concentrate to rectify our internal system. Maulana Ghulam Muhammad Wustanwi (Maharashtra) asserted that the madrasas should remain on the track which was laid down by our forefathers. There is a need to reform the internal system of madrasas and to establish part-time seminaries (maktabs). Maulana Salman Mazahiri (Mazahir Uloom Saharanpur): First, the madrasas were threatened and persuaded and now they are appeased and shown the dream of handsome salaries. No madrasa board proposal is acceptable to us. Maulana Ameeduz Zaman (Tanzeem Abna-e-Qadeem, Dlehi): We should keep distance from the Madrasa Board. This board is much more dangerous than the state madrasa boards in Bengal and Bihar, and this is not a local phenomenon but a part of a global conspiracy. Maulana Arshad Madani, President of Jamiat Ulama Hind and Head of Education Department, Darul Uloom Deoband, said that the fate of the madrasas affiliated to state madrasa boards in Bengal, Bihar, Assam and Rajasthan is known to all. Their academic career is highly uncompetitive and below standard. He said that according to the Sachar Committee report, the madrasas have only 4% of Muslim children, the rest 96% either goes to school or remains uneducated. So, if the government is so sincere about Muslims it should pay attention to the larger majority of Muslim children and implement the other recommendations of Sachar Committee. Maulana Khalilur Rahman Sajjad Nomani spoke in length and said that the treasure of Quran and Hadith is safe and secure only in the boundaries of these madrasas and any effort to change the key syllabus may be dangerous. Mufti Saeed Ahmad Palanpuri expressed his satisfaction that the madrasas will not be deluded and this madrasa board scheme will end in fiasco. Maulana Burhanuddin Sambhali, Lucknow argued that the enemies of Islam, after long experimentations, have reached to a conclusion that the only way to rout out Islam is to dry up the sources from where it gains strength. As a result, they are trying hard to give a bad name to these centres of Islam and to eliminate them from the surface of the earth.Maulana Mahmood Madani (General Secretary Jamiat Ulama Hind) his fiery speech said: The proposal of madrasa board is a Zionist plot and any such step to regulate the normal functioning madrasas will not be tolerated. It is our democratic right to establish madrasas and Islamic schools and we can never give it up. He added that the government should be worried about the schools and colleges instead of madrasas. The speakers stressed at various topics ranging from transparency in accounts, rectification of madrasa system, modification in syllabus, raise the salary and hostel standard, establishing maktabs (part time seminaries mainly in mosques to teach basic Islamic tenets to Muslim children), need to affiliate to Rabta etc. Owing to frequent conflicts arising about madrasas, Darul Uloom Deoband, being the mother of post 1857 Islamic madrasas, formed a joint platform of madrasas known as ‘Rabta Madaris Islamia Arabia’ (board of Islamic and Arabic madrasas) in 1995. The Board was established to achieve targets like forming a platform of madrasas to ward off conspiracies, discuss syllabus related matters and some other developmental issues. Though all the mainstream madrasas of the country are informally associated to Darul Uloom Deoband, but the formally affiliated madrasas are nearly 1500. The madrasas having Arabic classes are considered eligible to join this amalgam. In the concluding meeting on 14 May Sunday, the General Meeting passed resolution against Central Madrasa Board proposal and expressed their resolve to oppose it. The resolution was supported by all the participants and some representatives of major madrasas came on the dais also to affirm the same. The next morning, the authorities of Darul Uloom Deoband cheered up to read the first headline in Urdu daily Hindustan Express that the Government has no plan of establishing Central Madrasa Board. This view was expressed by HRD ministry in response to SP leader Shaihd Siddiqui’s question in Parliament regarding the proposed board. Muhammadullah Khalili Qasmi can be reached at: khaliliqasmi@gmail.com

In our daily newspapers, rape rears its ugly façade almost every day. Sometimes, it is a brutal rape and murder by a stranger, gang-rape of a girl by her acquaintances or in many cases rape of a girl by her own father or elderly relatives. In recent years, there has been an alarming rise in ratio of rape in India. It is becoming such a common thing in our newspapers that we are apt to not even pay any remarkable attention.

In India, a woman is raped every 25 minutes. According to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) statistics, between March 2004 and April 2005, 318 cases of rape were reported in Delhi alone. According to available statistics, more than 600 rape cases were registered in Delhi in 2005[1]. NCRB statistics also show more than 18,100 people were tried for rape in the country in 2003. Rape cases pending in courts across the country till Oct 2003 were 56,000.[2] The Startling aspect the story is that the perpetrators in most of the cases are a family member or a relative. According to a study, released in 1997 by the Sakshi Violence Intervention Centre based on a survey done with 350 school girls in New Delhi, “63% of the girls had experienced child sexual abuse at the hands of family members. Nearly one-third of the girls said the perpetrator had been a father, grandfather or male friend of the family.”[3]

These are the cases that are registered in police stations. While a vast majority of the cases go unreported. There is one observation by a study that only 5% of women crimes reach police stations in villages and even in that little percent, only 30% cases are registered by police and actions are taken against the accused.[4]

Reasons

In view of the startling situation one naturally is forced to think what the reason of the increasing criminal and barbaric trends in Indian youths is. One thing is noticeable that as the country is heading rapidly to globalization and westernization the ratio of such crimes is going higher and higher. Globalization has caused a significant change in the Indian culture, society and scenario. Late night party cultures, discos, dating clubs, fashion shows and beauty contests have increased in numbers in the past 10 years. The satellite and cable TV channels have grown and are almost uncensored by any organized authority. Also, this decade has witnessed a huge increase in pornography materials both in CDs and on Internet. The Indian entertainment industry (national and regional) and media which have access nearly to every house, present bold scenes and nudity as fashion and symbol of higher lifestyle. The youths are heavily getting addicted to drugs and other intoxicant stuffs.

At the same time, it is regretful that Indian women have gone far away in following the western culture in terms of nudity, immodesty and fashionable lifestyle. The good and constructive aspects of western culture such as discipline, hard work, dedication, tolerance, transparency, honesty, incorruptness etc are neglected. While on the contrary, the superficial glitters are accepted as a source to climb the zenith of development and intellectualism. The way the daughters are dressed and nurtured is very dangerous for them and ultimately for the society. This has caused havoc in our social system and the sanctity of relations and respect of humanity is falling apart.

Solutions

One who has an observation of recent social disorder and betrayal from the cultural and religious values is quite sure that the latest increasing trends of sexual violence against women are based on the changing scenario of our social system. It is quite surprising event and one is forced to think when we have a free and open society where men and women are free to make friends, have affairs, go to brothels and enjoy their life as they wish, then why some monsters prey girls to fulfil their lust. But, on the contrary, with the rise of globalization and westernization the crime ratio is on the rise. In USA, the hub of western culture, a woman is raped every 90 seconds.[5] In 1995, 354,670 women were the victims of a rape or sexual assault. Over the last two years, more than 787,000 women were the victim of a rape or sexual assault.[6] So, this is a clear proof that the direction to which our social system is headed is leading it to destruction and devastation.

As Muslims we believe that the guidelines that Muslims have been given by Glorious Quran and a Hadith are the ultimate points to find a peaceful and flourishing society. And, being followers of the only heavenly and most authentic religion, we can claim that the social and moral teachings of Islam can guarantee peace, tranquillity and safety if they are truly implemented. In order to get the society peaceful, safe and flourishing Islam has introduced complete social system. Unlike the current social systems, which hypocritically ban the consequences such as rape and sexual violence but leave the doors flung open by allowing the causes from where crimes creep in the society. But, Islam, on one hand, strictly deals with crimes like adultery and rape while on the other it roots out the immediate causes of the crime and regards them also illegal.

Islam has introduced strict penal codes for social crimes so that none dare to commit it. It set up such rules and commandments that narrow down the trends of committing such crimes. First, Islam has ordained it followers to cover their body necessarily every time; the men have to cover from pelvis to knee, while the women have to cover their entire body except their face, hands and feet. Islam has asked women to observe purdah form her distant relatives and strange men. The Glorious Quran enjoins Muslim men and women to lover their gaze and maintain modesty:

“Tell the believing men to lower their gaze and to be modest. This is purer for them. Allah is fully Aware of what they do. And tell the believing women to lower their gaze, and preserve their chastity, and to display of their adornment only that which is apparent. They shall draw their veils over their bosoms, and shall not reveal their adornment save to their own husbands, their fathers, the fathers of their husbands, their sons, the sons of their husbands, their brothers, the sons of their brothers, the sons of their sisters, other women, the male attendants who lack natural vigour, or the children who have no knowledge of sex. They shall not strike their feet (when they walk) in order to reveal what they hide of their adornment. And turn to Allah together, O believers so that you may succeed.”[7]

Women are recommended to wear modest clothes and not reveal their body and structure that may be sexually provocative to the opposite sex. In view of the women’s biological nature and their physical structure, Islam has asked women to, preferably, stay in their houses and not go out:

“Stay in your homes, and do not display your finery as women used to do in the old days of ignorance.”[8]

However, due to some compulsions and reasons, if any woman has to go out she has been enjoined to maintain modesty and wear Hijab*:

“O prophet, enjoin your wives, your daughters, and the wives of the believers that they draw their veils close round them. That is more proper, so that they may be recognized (as righteous women) and not molested.”[9]

To get the society free from crimes, the spate of pornographic materials must be strictly banned. The media, TV channels and cinema which present and publish vulgar materials must be censored. However, it heavily depends on our womenfolk whether they are careful to safeguard their modesty and self-respect or not.

Poliomyelitis, or polio, is a highly contagious viral infection that affects the nervous system. Children can be infected with polio when they eat or drink food and water contaminated with the virus or when they come into direct contact with an infected person’s faecal matter or saliva. The virus enters the body orally, and travels to the intestines where it multiplies. Eventually, the virus passes into the blood stream and attacks the nervous system. The virus damages nerve cells and can cause crippling paralysis, sometimes overnight. Generally polio affects children under three, but adults can contract it as well.

History

It is said that, before the availability of polio immunization, polio was common worldwide. In 1988, the World Health Assembly (WHA) the annual meeting of the ministers of health of all Member States of the World Health Organization, voted to launch a global goal to eradicate polio. In 1988, 350,000 children were being crippled by the virus in 125 countries. This Global Polio Eradication Initiative was the largest public health effort to date that brought the oral polio vaccine to more than 2 billion children. Since then, the incidence of polio has been slashed by 99 per cent. The Americas were certified polio-free in 1994, the Western Pacific in 2000 and Europe in 2002. Today more than three billion people - half of the world's population - in 134 countries and territories now live in areas certified polio-free.

The World Health Assembly passed a resolution to eradicate polio by the year 2000. But, to the end of 2003, indigenous polio was eliminated from all but six countries of the world: Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Niger, Nigeria and Pakistan. In 2006 the polio is endemic in four countries: Nigeria, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, they have yet to stop the transmission of the indigenous wild poliovirus. Once polio transmission is stopped in every region, a strong, ongoing surveillance system must confirm three polio-free years have passed before global eradication can be certified. With only four endemic countries left in the world, polio transmission could be stopped in every country by the end of 2006. The world could then be certified polio-free by end of 2010.

Oral Polio Vaccine

There are two kinds of polio vaccine: Inactivated (killed) Polio Virus (IPV) which is a shot given in the leg or arm. The other is Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV), which is drops that are swallowed. Now, (OPV) is the WHO-recommended vaccine for polio eradication. Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) is made with a live but weakened virus.

Oral Polio Vaccine is made of monkey kidney cells. In 1960 it was discovered that millions of polio vaccine doses produced in the early 1950's from monkey kidney cells were infected with simian virus 40 (SV-40), which was found in both Jonas Salk and Sabin polio vaccines. SV-40 is resistant to the "neutralizing effects" of the carcinogenic germicide formalin added to the vaccines, and was passed on to millions of people who now have SV-40 as part of their genetic structure. SV-40 is one example of a DNA polyoma virus. Polyoma (many tumour-causing) viruses cause prolonged infection where tissue is destroyed, integrate into the hosts genetic material, are capable of mutating a cell, may reproduce after coming into contact with a "helper" virus, enable the separate replication of the viral genome, can generate immune responses, and they can induce malignancy.

OPV & Cancer: “SV-40 is also a DNA virus. A study on DNA viruses was completed in 1966, and the results of the study were published in a 1967 edition of the American Journal of Pathology; the results clearly showed the known connection between such viruses and cancer: "A number of viruses containing DNA have been shown to induce tumors when inoculated into newborn animals. Members of the papovavirus group, mouse polyoma, and simian virus 40, all adenoviruses, are now recognized as oncogenic (cancer-causing) when tested by this method".

“The confirmation of the removal by one drug manufacturer, Lederle, has been made public at an international symposium in January 1997, where its representatives stated that all of Lederle's seeds had been tested and screened to assure that it was free from SV40. However, in litigation involving the Lederle oral polio vaccine, the manufacturer's internal documents failed to reveal such removal in all of the seeds. The absence of confirmatory testing of the seeds, as well as testimony of a Lederle manager, indicate that this claim of removal of SV40 and the testing for SV40 in all the seeds cannot be fully substantiated. These legal documents and testimony indicate that the scientific community should not be content with prior assumptions that SV40 could not have been in the oral polio vaccine. Only further investigation by outside scientific and independent researchers who can review the test results claimed in the January 1997 meeting and who can conduct their own independent evaluations by testing all the seeds and individual monovalent pools will assure that SV40 has not been present in commercially sold oral poliovirus vaccine manufactured by Lederle.”

OPV & AIDS: “The Origins of AIDS takes us to the former Belgian Congo to investigate this controversial claim put forward by journalist Edward Hooper. In his book, The River: Journey to the Source of AIDS, he links the onset of AIDS to a mass polio vaccination in the 1950's when nearly a million Africans were injected with an experimental vaccine derived from monkey organs. While experts agree that AIDS was born from human exposure to a chimpanzee virus, most dismiss the link to the polio.”

“New evidence shows that it is likely that the AIDS epidemic began from a mistake among polio researchers in the 1950s. Claudio Basilico of the New York University School of Medicine stated at London's Royal Society on September 11, 2000 that there is evidence of HIV in seven samples of the oral polio vaccine from 1950. The theory that the oral polio vaccine carried the chimpanzee virus that became AIDS is still controversial, as the vaccine scientists stated they never used chimpanzees as hosts.”

The above mentioned reports may be called as outdated, but Barbara Loe Fisher, Co-founder & President of National Vaccine Information Centre in a paper presentation (in Sep 2003 at http://www.909shot.com/) stated that the virus SV-40 exists and it causes a number of diseases.

In US, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has sought sanction on Oral Polio Vaccine in 2000. The vaccine manufacturer Lederle that sold 600 million doses from 1969 to 1999 was ordered to leave the country. Now, IPV is given by injection. Here, the question arises why OPV is banned in US and the same is given in India and elsewhere. What are the OPV ingredients that are served in India and which company manufactures it? Till now, the Lederle Oral Polio Vaccine consists of ‘monkey kidney cell culture’. (Vaccine Ingredients & Their Chemical Profiles,BAGETT, Saturday, 31 December 2005 at http://www.surfingtheapocalypse.net) According to Harvard Medical School professor Ronald Desrosier, the polio virus that is used in both Wyeth-Lederle's oral vaccine and Connaught's injected version is grown on monkeys' kidney tissue. "The danger in using monkey tissue to produce human vaccines," says Desrosier, "is that some viruses produced by monkeys may be transferred to humans in the vaccine, with very bad health consequences." Desrosier acknowledges that you can test monkeys before using their tissue and screen out those carrying harmful viruses. But he warns that you can test only for those viruses you know about--and that our knowledge is limited to perhaps "2% of existing monkey viruses.” While, this is also a fact that UNICEF procures all the oral polio vaccine for national immunization days – more than 10 billion doses since the campaign began. (UNICEF website) Reaction: This is also a fact confirmed by scientists that for a few people (about one in 2.4 million), OPV actually causes polio. In rare cases, the oral vaccine used to prevent polio can cause polio paralysis in persons who are vaccinated and in people who are close contacts of a vaccinated person. About 8 to 9 cases of paralytic polio caused by the oral vaccine have been reported in the United States yearly. In the United States, the last case of "wild" polio was in 1979. Wild polio is naturally circulating polio that is not caused by the oral polio vaccine. Except for an occasional importation, all cases of paralytic polio since 1979 have been caused by the oral polio vaccine.

There are a number of cases even in India that the infants which are vaccinated against polio have been attacked by polio. How, it happens? If the OPV causes polio one in 2.4 million then how India can get rid of polio when nearly 165 million children are vaccinated. In 2006 (till 4 July) India reported 73 cases. Is it not so that these cases are actually the result of the OPV itself?

Why Only Polio? Polio elimination campaign is the largest public health initiative ever known. Since 1988, some two billion children around the world have been immunized against polio with the unprecedented cooperation of more than 200 countries and 20 million volunteers, backed by an international investment of US$ 3 billion. In view of the massive polio eradication campaigns and huge amount of money spent on them, one is quite surprised why polio receives the highest level of political attention. Even today, nearly 165 million children are given polio drops in India by mobilizing millions of people and investing billions of rupees. Whereas, the new polio cases do not exceed hundreds, for example in 2006 only 73 cases were registered till April. While on the other hand, nearly one million people die of tobacco and smoking in our country, but no ban or strict law is enforced to eliminate this epidemic. Thousands contract HIV but pre-marital and extra-marital relations are allowed and no effective precaution is being implemented. Also, it is home to malaria, hepatitis, cholera and so many endemic diseases but not so much attention, why?

Moreover, polio is now mainly a disease of poverty. Spreading through water or food contaminated with human waste, it is particularly devastating in crowded urban slums, where sanitation is poor and children are malnourished and out of reach of basic health services. India, having 44% of world’s poor, lacking proper sanitation and nutrition resources, do not have any Poverty Eradiation Initiative or programme, why?

Why they are so generous? The Global Polio Eradication Initiative, spearheaded by UN, UNICEF, WHO, Rotary International, the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Governments like US and others with a huge amount of US$ 3 billion. The polio cases were reported only in numbers not exceeding two thousand after 2000. Here also the same question remains unsolved why these institutions and governments are so generous as far as the polio is concerned, whereas the same UN imposed sanctions on medicines upon Iraq in 1991 that led to the death of half million children. Why is this contradiction? Is it not so that they have any hidden agenda?

Is OPV anti-fertilization? Here, in India we sometimes hear some voices of protest against polio vaccine being anti-fertilization and productivity. There is another same voice from Nigeria (LifeSiteNews.com, March 2004) that provokes the same idea that campaign to vaccinate Nigeria's youth against polio may have been a front for sterilizing the nation. Dr. Haruna Kaita, a pharmaceutical scientist and Dean of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, took samples of the vaccine to labs in India for analysis.

“Using WHO-recommended technologies like Gas Chromatography (GC) and Radio-Immuno assay, Dr. Kaita, upon analysis, found evidence of serious contamination. “Some of the things we discovered in the vaccines are harmful, toxic; some have direct effects on the human reproductive system," he said in an interview with Kaduna's Weekly Trust. "I and some other professional colleagues who are Indians who were in the Lab could not believe the discovery," he said.

”When asked by the Trust why Dr. Kaita felt the drug manufacturers would have contaminated the Oral Polio Vaccine, he gave three reasons: "These manufacturers or promoters of these harmful things have a secret agenda which only further research can reveal. Secondly they have always taken us in the third world for granted, thinking we don't have the capacity, knowledge and equipment to conduct tests that would reveal such contaminants. And very unfortunately they also have people to defend their atrocities within our midst, and worst still some of these are supposed to be our own professionals who we rely on to protect our interests." Dr. Kaita is demanding that "those who imported this fake drug in the name of Polio Vaccines…be prosecuted like any other criminal."

”The northern Nigerian state of Kano has opted out of the WHO oral polio immunization drive -- officials there remain sceptical of the safety of the vaccine. Kano State Governor Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau told the BBC's Hausa service program in Kaduna that "We have investigated and discovered that there is danger in the polio vaccines. We have therefore opted out of the national immunization exercise against polio, until we are convinced of its efficacy and safety because a series of laboratory tests have revealed that the vaccines contain some substances which are capable of causing infertility, especially in females," he said, as reported in allAfrica's ThisDay on-line news source.”

This is also a serious question that requires attention. Actually, drugs and vaccines are very different. Drugs are used to cure sick people while vaccines are given to healthy people, primarily children. The standards for proof of safety and efficacy of vaccines should be higher than for any other pharmaceutical product we use.

The Task Ahead

After all, it is an established fact that the oral polio vaccine has been the most effective medicine to combat this disease. Till now polio is incurable and immunization is the only remedy. There is no other efficient way that roots out this curse. It is the virtue of this vaccine that polio which in 1988 crippled 350 thousand people in 125 countries has been minimized to only some hundreds in four countries. India that once had 30 thousand victims of polio now is almost polio free except some northern states like UP and Bihar. In 2006 India witnesses 137 new cases of polio, UP being on the top with 121. Most regretfully that 70% of those affected are Muslims. There are many reasons that have caused this disease still looming in Muslim areas; many Muslim parents have been reported to be suspicious and reluctant to give these drops to their dear ones due to widespread misconceptions, while many of them are, due to ignorance or poverty, even unaware of the consequences that lie head. We, as citizens of this country, have to resolve firmly that we have to get rid of this epidemic and free India from this disease and all such killing bugstobacco or drugs. As part of the global family, one cannot seclude oneself with such endemic diseases only on the basis of some misconceptions, though one has the right to clear doubts. Ulama and Muslim NGOs must come out for an effective drive towards polio eradication and drugs free society.